She plucked out the Bayer aspirin. She sat on the edge of the marble tub and turned the bottle over to study the warning label.
A simple box warning right in there with all the rest of the standard drug info. All it said was not to give it to children and teenagers if they had symptoms from flu or chicken pox. It seemed like such a small thing. And yet it had apparently sent executives at aspirin companies into a panic. Their product was under attack. They needed a defender.
And someone like her father had probably provided the product-defense playbook: the science wasn’t sound, don’t rush to judgment…
Delay = $$$
Alix sat on the edge of her parents’ whirlpool tub with the bottle of aspirin in her hand, thinking of her father, feeling more and more unclean.
29
“HOW MUCH LONGER TILL EVERYONE’S done packing?” Moses asked Cynthia. They were loading gear into a van that Kook had rented. Her hair was now red and she’d changed her earrings and piercings. Cyn’s hair was bobbed short, and she was wearing her makeup differently. Moses was amazed at how a few bits of blush or toner or eye shadow could totally change the impression of a person’s face.
Cynthia had bemoaned the loss of her lustrous hair, but she’d donated it to some wig maker that helped cancer victims, so she figured it wasn’t a total loss. Someone would like all that hair. Adam had shifted from hipster with his porkpie hat to an all-American athlete, as if he’d never left the fine Mormon confines of Utah. And Moses, well, he’d turned himself into a young Wall Street turk, full suit, leather briefcase. A suit and a briefcase carried so much authority in America that the only thing better was a police uniform.
Tank hadn’t bothered changing anything.
Skate rat’s a skate rat, was all he said. Nobody notices skate rats.
Cyn looked up from her packing. “This is almost everything. We’re totally cleared out.” She stared around the empty space. “I’m going to miss this place.”
“Yeah, well,” Moses shrugged. “What’s the point?”
All their work had come to nothing. All the money, all the planning, all the time. And it had disappeared so quickly.
Right back where we started.
Right back down in the hole with all the lunatic activists, everyone from the antiwar protesters, to the 9/11 conspiracists, to PETA, to the antivaccine weenies. Relegated to the nutjob end of the spectrum. Just one more bunch of radicals in a frothy soup of radicals.
“You okay with this?” Adam asked as he loaded more boxes.
“Yeah,” Moses said. “You’re right. It’s over. No way we’re going to win against these assholes.”
“Sorry your girl didn’t work out.”
Moses laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, well, I got too wrapped up in that, didn’t I?”
“I never did see what you saw in her.”
“Ass,” Cyn said, as she went to gather more of their gear. “She had a nice ass.”
Moses ignored her. “You going to be okay?” he asked Adam.
“Oh, sure.” Adam grinned. “I’m heading for Florida. There’s a guy down there, wants me to DJ at his club.”
“A good-looking Cuban boy,” Kook added. “Biceps like this.” She mimed the muscles. “Sexy as hell.”
Adam shot her a glare. “Would you please stay out of my e-mail?”
Kook batted her black lashes. “You’ll miss me when I’m not looking over your shoulder all the time. I’m the only one who will kick sense into you.”
Adam shook his head and grabbed up his gym bag. “I’m going to be so glad to have privacy.”
“Just you and the NSA,” Kook quipped.
Moses held out a hand to Adam. “Take care of yourself.”
Adam looked at him strangely, but he took the offered hand in a strong grip, and then pulled Moses into a hug. “Don’t do anything crazy,” he said, as he let Moses grow.
“Crazy?” Moses shook his head. “Nah. I still got some money left. Maybe I’ll go round the world on a trip or something. Kick it on a beach somewhere. Watch the world burn down with a piña colada, you know?”
“And then?”
“Can’t be bothered to worry about that. Maybe back out to Vegas. I hear there’s a guy out there knows how to pick pockets in public. Makes a show out of it. I always wanted to learn that.”
“Shit, I’ll bet you end up teaching him.”
“Maybe.” Moses laughed. “Maybe.”
Cyn came out hauling two more suitcases. Adam and Moses went and grabbed them from her. Moses grunted at the weight. “You got rocks in here?”
“They’re nice clothes,” Cyn defended herself. “I’m not wasting them.”
“You’ll blend right in at Stanford,” Kook said.
“It’s going to be weird to sit in classes that are actually new to me.”
They slung the suitcases into the back of the van. Cyn and Adam pulled out, waving. Tank came out of the warehouse, hauling grocery bags full of hard drives to Kook’s car. Moses helped carry out the flatscreens and slide them into the back of the station wagon, buffered by blankets.
When Kook finished and closed the hatch on the station wagon, she said, “Sorry it didn’t work out.”
Moses shrugged. “Shit happens.”
She handed him a USB stick. “This is for you.”
“What is it?”
“Her. Video. Her greatest hits. Case you want to relive the fun. A lot of shots of her eating cereal.”
Moses took the USB stick.
“It was a good run,” Kook said. She slapped him on the shoulder.
“Yeah. Too bad the world didn’t give a fuck.”
“The world’s give-a-fuck was broken a long time before any of us came along. Not your fault.” She turned. “Come on, Tank!”
“Where you headed?”
“I got an aunt in Colorado. Crazy hippie lady. Figure we’ll lie low with her. Let Tank get his driver’s license or something.” She turned and shouted toward the warehouse. “Tank!”
“I’m right here,” he said quietly. He’d been on the other side of the car.
“Would you quit lurking like that?” Kook waved him into the car. “Come on. Let’s get going.”
“Be there in a second.”
“Sure. Say good-bye.” She climbed into the car and started the engine. Tank sidled over to Moses.
“When are you heading out?” Tank asked.
Moses shrugged. “Soon.”
Tank was looking down at his shoes. “You never really said where you were going.”
The thing about Tank was, the kid paid attention. Most people, they were so busy chattering back and forth that they missed most of what was going on. And then there was Tank—always around, always paying attention, and so quiet that you forgot all about him.
“Hell. I don’t know. Probably going on the road,” Moses said, finally. “Vegas or something, eventually.” Even to himself, it sounded like he was talking a line.
Tank peered up from under his tangled black hair. “Uh-huh.”
Moses had the uncomfortable feeling the kid could see right through him. His uncle had been like that. You can’t con a con, his uncle liked to say whenever Moses was trying to be sneaky. Moses found himself avoiding Tank’s eyes. He made himself meet the boy’s gaze. “You don’t need to worry about me,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”
“Just don’t do anything stupid,” Tank said.
“Stupid?” Moses gave the kid his best thousand-watt, trust-me smile. “Nah. I always make the smart move, don’t you know?” He waved toward the car. “Go on. Kook’s waiting.”